CMF Chapter 12
Group1 - Matt Offet ' Early Developments in Public Relations' A) P.T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill were amongst the most successful at using public relations and press agents to boost the notoriety of their traveling extravaganzas. Both men used multiple forms of media and staged events to make their performers household names. Barnum and his “Greatest Show on Earth” circus promoted its acts such as Jumbo the Elephant, General Tom Thumb, and others so effectively that they became some of the first nationally known celebrities. Buffalo Bill used similar tactics, but he employed a team of nine press agents to build interest in his traveling show. His show, which re-enacted historical old west battles and showcased performers such as Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull used publicity to keep their traveling show on the road for thirty-four years. Here is a short video about the success ofBuffalo Bill's successful Wild West Show. B) After seeing the success of using press agents to generate favorable publicity in other channels, businesses and utilities started using PR to generate favor. The railroads used a multitude of methods to garner support and government subsidy, including bribing journalists to write positive stories about rail travel and giving reporters free tickets with an understanding that it meant they were to write favorable stories (referred to as deadheading). The publicity worked, as the railroad industry gained federal funding and ultimately used lobbyists to get the Interstate Commerce Act passed in 1881 which would eliminate competition and increase fares. AT&T followed a similar path in the late 19th century to grow a monopoly and eliminate all competition. The tactics used in the last couple decades of the 1800’s are seen as a low point in PR as it was starting to gain legitimacy. C) As literacy rates rose and muckraking journalists began to look into the tactics that large companies were using to gain public favor it became more difficult to fool the public. With the changing landscape of PR two men emerged as pioneers in the industry and they furthered the legitimization of their field. i) Ivy Ledbetter Lee' '''adopted a PR philosophy that was counter to how it was handled in the 19th century. Instead of lying and hiding facts his philosophy was to be honest and direct with the public, as they weren’t as gullible as they used to be. His tactics helped Penn Railroad manage a PR crisis following an accident by advising them to be honest and let newspapers in on the story. He similarly managed a PR crisis for the Rockefeller family, when in 1914 a violent scene involving coal workers and the company backed militia erupted, ending in the deaths of 53 workers and family members. Lee was ultimately successful in transforming the Rockefeller family image, as he encouraged them to play up their charitable ways and historians even believe Lee influenced John Rockefeller to hand out dimes to children wherever he went to positively influence their image. ii) Edward Bernays was the first public relations professional to apply psychology and sociology to the profession. He wrote the first PR textbook (entitled “''Crystallizing Public Opinion”), taught the first PR class at NYU in 1923, and he even wrote the definition for public relations - “Public relations is the attempt, by information, persuasion, and adjustment, to engineer public support for an activity, cause, movement, or institution.” (CMF, Chapter 12). He was famously hired by the American Tobacco Company to help make smoking more acceptable for women. To achieve this he gathered a group of women to walk in the NY Easter Parade in 1929 smoking their “torches of freedom”, stressing that they were independent from men and empowering women to smoke as a symbol of this new freeness. Bernays’ wife and partner, Doris, was one of the first women in the PR industry and opened the industry up to women, who dominate the industry today. Here is a slightly comical short video on the Bernays "Torches of Freedom" campaign. Group 2-Audrey Neeley I. The Practice of Public Relations · There are more than 7,000 PR firms and even more PR departments within corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations. By, 2011 the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) had more than 10,000 members and 322 chapter at different colleges and universities. A. Approaches to Organized Public Relations · The simple definition of PR is: “Public relations help an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other”. Independent PR agencies job is to provide clients with PR services. Most companies have their own in-house PR staff to handle tasks such as: press releases, managing media requests, staging special events, and dealing with internal and external publics. · Large PR firms are owned or affiliated with multinational communication companies like WPP, Omnicom, and Interpublic. The two largest PR firms are Burson-Marsteller and Hill & Knowlton whose parent company is WPP. Burson-Marsteller represents companies like Facebook, Ikea, and Sony. Hill & Knowlton represent companies like Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, and Splenda. Edelman is a New York based company and is the largest independent firm representing companies like Samsung, Ben & Jerry’s, and Hewlett-Packard. · Most PR work in done in house although the larger American companies tends to retain external PR firms as well. Almost all service and manufacturing companies have in-house PR departments. These departments are vital to professional companies like American Medical Association and the National Association of Broadcasters. This also hold true for nonprofit organizations like the American Cancer Society and most colleges or universities. B. Performing Public Relations · Public Relations have to pay special attention to their clients like Politian’s, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations, because like advertising, they need to know the perspectives of the target audience. These audiences include: consumers, general public, employees, shareholders, media outlets, government agencies, and community leaders. What PR provides for their clients is: publicity, communication, public affairs, issues management, industry relations, advertising, promotion, media relations, and propaganda. Propaganda is communication strategically placed as advertising or publicity to gain public support for a social issue, program, or policy. · PR technician handle daily short-term activities. PR managers counsel clients and manage activities over the long term. These personnel produce employee newsletters, manage client trade shows, organize damage control after negative publicity, analyze trends that could affect the client future, and much more. Their job simply put is: formulate the message, convey the message through many outlets, maintain public support through consumer and community support, and maintain client interests. i. Research: Formulating the Message o PR firms use demographic and psychographic research to get messages to the right audience. Research is the key for PR forecasting and they use many tools to get an audience perception of an issue, policy, program, or client image. Tools used to acquire this information are: mail, telephone and internet surveys, and social media analytic tools like BlogPulse and Trendrr. o Research also helps firms focus the campaign message. They first target the audience by researching the problem and then conducts a focus group to refine the tone of the message. ii. Conveying the Message o PR firms have to create and distribute messages for news media and the public on a day-to-day basis. These messages come in many forms such as: press leases, VRNs, and multiple online options. o Press releases are announcements written in a news style report that gives new information about an individual, company, or organization and pitch the story to the news media. The main goal of the press release is for it to get picked up by news media and turned into a report. Through press releases, firms control the flow of information by controlling which media get which stories in what order. News editors and broadcasters decide which release to use based off of how current or original the ideas are. Most large media outlets rewrite the stories but smaller outlets use the stories verbatim. The more the press release sounds like an actual news story, the more likely it will be used. o Firms also use video news releases '(VRNs), which are thirty to ninety-second visual press releases that are made to look like a broadcast news report. VRNs are normally not used by large TV news stations, but small networks tend to use them a lot. Some stations have been scrutinized for using VRNs because they have not acknowledged the source. The FCC mandated in 2005 that stations must disclose the source of the VRNs they air. Again, this gives PR firms some control over the news and what the general public “thinks” about an issue. o '''Public service announcements '(PSAs) are the nonprofit version of VRNs. These are fifteen to sixty second audio or video reports that promote government programs, educational projects, volunteer agencies, and social reform to serve the public interest. Since the deregulation of broadcasting in the 1980s, there has been less pressure and no obligation to air PSAs. PSAs tend to be run between midnight and 6:00 a.m. because the time slot is not as valuable. http://youtu.be/__C7sd_UDU0 o The internet is used in a wide range of distributing e-mail press releases, press kits, and VRNS for targeted groups. The social media press release mixes multimedia elements like text, graphics, video, podcasts, and hyperlinks. This gives journalists plenty of material to make their own stories. iii. Media Relations o PR manager that specialize in media relations promote clients by securing publicity in the news. This normally requires an in-house PR person to speak for this client or direct reports to experts who can provide information. Those who specialize in media relations also do damage control for their clients and are normally appointed to be the only person that can be spoken to about that matter. This happens because firms want to make sure that rumors or inaccurate stories do not circulate through the media. Sometimes reporters can get people to speak off the record to get background information without having to give a source. o Agents whose specialty is media relations sometimes recommend advertising to their clients. In these cases, unlike publicity, paid advertising can help focus an issue or a client’s image. Publicity is actual news and carries more credibility then advertising. Media specialists associate with certain editors, reporters, and freelance writers so their press releases and VRNs are well received. iv. Special Events and Pseudo-Events o Special events are coordinated to raise the profile of corporate, organizational, and government clients. A city may throw an event like a festival and then local companies can sponsor the event and gain positive coverage through the advertising of the event. They receive this publicity by showing a commitment to the city in which their headquarters are located. o Publicity from a special-event is a corporate sponsor aligning itself with a cause that has a positive image with the public. For example, a company may be the primary sponsor to a marathon and they provide the prize money, the PR office for the race, operating the pressroom, creating the media guide, and other press materials. Other sponsors like Nike, Gatorade, and PowerBar may also help sponsor the marathon as well because they want the positive coverage. o A '''pseudo-event is any circumstance created for the purpose of gaining coverage in the media. Examples of pseudo-events are: press conferences, TV and radio talk show appearances, and any other staged activity. The success of the event all depends on the client and the media attention to the event. o To get free publicity, companies started staging press conferences to launch a new product. Now politicians schedule many press conferences and interviews because they know that the media has a large interest in live remote feeds and breaking news. http://youtu.be/qzUH9PJA1Ro Sources: 1. Campbell, Martin, and Fabos (2013). Media and Culture: Mass Communication In A Digital Age. Bedford St. Martin’s: New York. 2. Apple WWDC 2013 Keynote ios 7. 2013. video. YouTubeWeb. 31 Jul 2013. . 3. PSA - STOP BULLYING ''. 2013. video. YouTubeWeb. 31 Jul 2013. . Group 3 Angela Jasinski i. Community and Consumer Relations 1. Two responsibilities that the PR also has are to maintain kindness between an agency’s clients and the public which are also called communities and consumers. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.435) a. The PR’s responsibility for companies are to encourage the companies to be more involved and get their name out there by attending community festivals, tour open houses, and donate to local charities, etc. Companies have realized that if they want a good image for themselves and attract new customers they will have to become familiar with their community and neighbors. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.435) b. In 1965 called, ''Unsafe at Any Speed, regarding Chevrolet Corvair, by Ralph Nader came out the PR had a harder time with consumer relations. Once the book got out it was hard for the consumers they became less prepared and to eager to accept the claims of corporations. The book started the consumer movement and TV stations and newspapers started to track down the sources of customer complaints and embarrass companies by putting them in the media. The PR made a statement and allowed everyone to know that the customer’s calls and mail were answered right away. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.435-436) c. http://www.bizjournalismhistory.org/1960_1965.htm This is a website I found that goes more in depth about Ralph Nader’s book. ii. Government Relations and Lobbying 1. Government agencies control businesses, and have some say it how businesses operate. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.437) 2. Definition of Lobbying a. The process of attempting to influence lawmakers to support and vote for an organization’s or industries best interests. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.436) 3. Definition of Astroturf Lobbying a. It is phony grassroots public-affairs campaigns engineered by public relations firms. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.436) b. Public Relations Adapts to the Internet Age i. PR adapted to the Internet for excisable to communicate with publics, they also use social media interact with their audience. Social media is a great tool it can become a threat for famous people at the same time. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.437) c. Public Relations during a Crisis i. One important role for PR is helping corporations during a crisis/tragedy. Also PR helps with oil spills. In 1982 Tylenol pain relief had 7 people die in Chicago area because of the tablets being poisons. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.438-439) 2. Tensions between Public Relations and the Press i. Stanley Walker believes that PR agencies are not ethical, and he also said the PR and newspapers will always be enemies. Many editors’ stories originate from PR people. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.440) ii. Definition of Flack 1. A derogatory term that in journalism is sometimes applied to a public relations agent. b. Elements of Professional Friction i. Relationships between journalism and PR is crucial, PR needs journalists for publicity, and journalism needs PR for story ideas and access. Now PR firms supply what reporters used to gather for themselves. (Campbell, Martin, Fabos pg.440) Group 4 i) Undermining Facts and Blocking Access ii) Promoting Publicity and Business as News B) Shaping the Image of Public Relations C) Alternative Voices II) Public Relations and Democracy